Tech: Firefox 4

Subject: Tech: Firefox 4
From: G-Force
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 12:06 PM

Anyone got any experience of this yet? Is it OK to upgrade, or should we stick with 3-point-whatever for now?

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 12:22 PM

No problems, works fine.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,Gimp
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 12:36 PM

I've had no end of problems with FF4, not least its failure to close tabs and pop-ups. I'd stick with FF3, personally.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 12:46 PM

If you are on a Microsloth PC you do not need to ditch what you are already using.
Check out http://portableapps.com/.
It is designed to run useful software from a USB memory stick without installing anything on the PC, but works just as well from an location on your PC hard drive, or attached storage. If you want to uninstall one of it's components, all you do is delete the folder it is in.
It also means you can have different versions of the portable version of firefox saved in different folders. The PC will only run one version at any one time, but they save things such as cookies in their own separate folder, so what you do on one version cannot mess up what you do on a different occasion when you are running the alternative version.
Portable Apps also allows you to run a stack of useful programmes that will do most of the things we need to do on a routine basis and extra options are being added on an almost daily basis.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 01:22 PM

Maybe in response to GUEST, gimp above I should add I run Adblock plus, NoScript and tab mix plus so pop ups never occur and Tab mix functions as normal, opening as well as closing tabs.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 01:34 PM

Stick with Firefox 3 Firefox 4 takes over your toolbar and re-organises everything wether you want it too or not.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 02:16 PM

I really don't like it, but I am willing to give it a chance. It DOES mess up everything you thought you knew where they were. There's a few things I still haven't found. They say it's faster but I haven't noticed all that much change.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Bill D
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 02:27 PM

I have been reading about it... and it IS different. Some like it...some don't. I almost always wait for weeks until I see the fallout and opinions before making major changes to browsers.
One advantage of Opera is that it easily allows installing new versions side-by-side with older ones, and allowing easy comparison. Firefox makes it a LOT more difficult to do this, as it 'seeks' out old copies and updates them, whether you planned to or not.
   I like Firefox, but I will wait.........

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 02:28 PM

View>Toolbars>customise

and tick the add-on bar

The update did move a lot of things but it was easily sorted.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Susan of DT
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 02:52 PM

Not a real problem, but I don't like it.

Norton web security does not work right on it.

I have not found a way to make the icons at the top bigger, or the text size of the bookmarks - there used to be visibility options. Their new plus key is not specific to a particular website - so if you use it on one website, all websites get that much bigger, if they need it or not, so I am back to control plus to control individual website text size.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Stewart
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 03:31 PM

Not much difference that I can see
I didn't like the tabs on the top
but then I found you can put them back on the bottom
View/Toolbars/ uncheck "tabs on top"

Cheers, S. in Seattle

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: DMcG
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 04:58 PM

If you are involved with development there's a good chance you use firebug as a plug-in for firefox. It works MUCH better with FF3 at the moment and I would strongly advise against FF4 at the moment if you use such plug-ins

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,Chris P
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 05:09 PM

Google Toolbar doesn't work on it, which is annoying, but I think that's because Google aren't playing ball.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: GUEST,DWR
Date: 03 Apr 11 - 09:53 PM

View/Toolbars/ uncheck "tabs on top" Thanks, Stewart. My problem was that the whole menu toolbar was missing. Don't know why it disappeared in the changeover from 3 to 4. Your direction made me go WHOA! No Wonder!

As to what does and doesn't work, that takes time for the different sources to be worked out.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: RunrigFan
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 03:10 AM

I had problems when tabs wouldn't close' but Firefox 4 has just been released; there'es still updates and it will improve as Firefox 3 did

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 05:15 AM

I use FF4 Portable with Firebug and Flash (not that I like Flash
Flash doesn't like proxy servers &/or remote instances of XP as exemplified by our Library system terminals.

Other than finding that FF3.XX.XX portable wouldn't run on XP that that ddn't have internet connectivity I find them good. FF4 has cosmetic differences but otherwise it doesn't feel different with the surfing I do, maybe faster to load, but the Corsair Flash Voyager stick I run it on has a limit of 30Mb /sec which is the fastest USB2 can go. So maybe I wouldn't see much improvement.

The thing about the portable version is that I take all my history and passwords with me. And with a custom homepage on the stick I can have many favourites set out in 2D.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: JHW
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 05:16 AM

Thanks for the thread and some useful warnings.
Odd though I've never heard of it, only just had a thingy saying why don't I upgrade to a new 3 version.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: SteveMansfield
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 05:50 AM

Odd though I've never heard of it, only just had a thingy saying why don't I upgrade to a new 3 version.

Judging by previous FF versions it'll probably be a while until the automated update prompts start encouraging you to move to FF4, and they'll most probably do a couple more security updates to the 3.xx track before freezing that. So, at the moment, the upgrade to FF4 is a manual operation.

But that's all based on previous experience, as I jumped ship from FF to Chrome about six months ago and haven't seen anything in FF4 to make me switch back. It'll be interesting to see how much longer Google carry on bankrolling Mozilla now they've got Chrome established as a browser, and once the Google money dries up Mozilla will, sadly, disappear like a punctured balloon ....

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Mr Red
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 06:00 AM

once the Google money dries up Mozilla will, sadly, disappear like a punctured balloon

I suspect Google will still feed money into Mozilla. Any monies that go that way are not widely broadcast even though the evidence is all over FF. Google need the appearance of competition to avoid the Micro$oft mistake of being a virtual monopoly. And doesn't Chrome have a Mozilla engine under the bonnet? Or did I mean hood?

Chrome is deliberately simple for speed, FF is feature rich.
Different strokes for different folks. eg Just listen to a Mac user (or did I mean evangelist?).

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 11:20 AM

I like v.4...especially the 'read later' app. One can serch a subject, preview articles, and save them for later viewing without having to bookmark. The couple of minor inconveniences of a new way of doing things is quickly being overcome by this admitted technophobe.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Apr 11 - 09:43 PM

I got a prompt on Win 7 to move to FF V4, but declined - there is no FF4 code in the current LTS version of Ubuntu update system.

As I said - Chrome is the only way to display certain facebook apps, that no longer work in FF3. and yes, there are a zillion OTHER Linux browsers, most of which barf at the 'new codings' ...

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 07:10 AM

Updated to FF4 at the first opportunity, and it works fine for me. I zapped the new toolbar layout back immediately, and everything else is fine.

I do keep getting a message that "something is trying to trick Firefox into downloading an insecure update" from my security software.

Anybody else had that?

Don T.

Subject: RE: Tech: Firefox 4
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 05 Apr 11 - 07:06 PM

Sadly, certain sw makers seem to think that useless vague information like that is 'helpful' - they simply can't design good exception handling code. Also they may be fearful that giving what info they DO have during code execution will be confusing for the level of user they market at.

It may just be that the unnamed 'security software' is not up to date with what Firefox is doing, and sees things it does not have in its database of 'good things to accept' - perhaps an update is needed (you may have the latest issued update). Firefox and other 'GNU' stuff is often seen as an 'annoyance' as the number of users is seen as too small to worry about, to generate new update specifically. This can also be a good reason to hold back rapid updates of certain utilities.